


Meta (for)

by Yeomanrand



Category: Firefly
Genre: Awesome Ladies Ficathon, Gen, Short, Wordcount: 100-500
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-23
Updated: 2010-06-23
Packaged: 2017-10-10 05:59:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/96345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yeomanrand/pseuds/Yeomanrand
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the  <a href="http://ineffort.livejournal.com/199061.html">Awesome Ladies Ficathon</a> prompt: <i>Firefly, River Tam, I'm taking the knife to the books that I own/And I'm chopping and chopping and boiling soup from stone</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Meta (for)

River squirms easily into one of Serenity's many hiding places, calculating pounds per square inch across Book's scalp.

Turning Book's metaphor into paper, that had been an accident and she really is sorry for it. She forgets, sometimes, the magic within her, the strength of her ability to destroy. But then, she knows who she _is_ but only occasionally knows who she _was_, an irreconcilable dichotomy. Like the ones in the metaphor she'd tried to fix.

A thousand million years from now, she remembers Book dying in Mal's arms on a desert planet. But that hasn't happened yet, and right now the fear for his brain in the face of all that hair is overwhelming everything else.

It's almost reassuring, after the ways she has to know them all, knows Zoe's gunmetal stoicism and bitter loyalty, Mal's almond concern and silver doubt, Book's titanium tenderness and foxfire history, the pale floral cover of Wash's casual demeanor over acid determination and cerulean fear, Kaylee's machine oil joy and quicksilver desire, Jayne's eggshell bravado and eggplant regrets. The soup she lives in, breathes in every day and she can't not, she can't shut it out, all their feeling and feelings they're just _there_, all the time and it's worse when they go planetside and she's left alone on _Serenity_ with nothing but ghosts and echoes and a girl she knows but can't remember.

So to live with her own fear and no one else's metaphor, however long it lasts...she draws her knees to her chest in her dark hiding place and tastes the bitter apple of Book's concern mingling with the cinnamon of Zoe's laughter.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](http://ineffort.livejournal.com/199061.html?thread=4190357#t4190357) on LiveJournal.


End file.
